is reading a #book: Mistakes Were Made (But Not By Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions And Hurtful Acts http://ping.fm/MSpVN

Can any of you recommend a good brand of 4-track tape player that can handle NLS cassettes well? My NLS player is 10 years old and is shot.

Hi everyone. I’m writing to invite you to a round table chat taking place this evening about learning how Facebook works. There is a steadily growing community of blind people on Facebook as well as people with other disabilities. We’ll talk about the easiest ways to use Facebook, how to find your friends, what kinds of things you’ll find on Facebook, and we’ll touch briefly on how Facebook is being used for outreach by nonprofit organizations similar to Bookshare. You will learn how to join business networks to link up with coworkers and get a better grasp of how social media sites impact your work life too. And let’s be honest. Facebook is just a great way to have fun with your buddies at the end of the day.

If this sounds interesting to you, please join us. Everyone is welcome no matter whether you’re new to computers or have two or three computer science degrees. See below for details.

Who: Everyone

When: tonight, 2/3/2009 at 6 PM Pacific, 7 PM Mountain, 8 PM Central, and 9 PM Eastern

Where: Point your browser to the OurPlace chat area

Once you get there, look for the Politics Room and hit enter. You will be
at the place where you must either download software or choose to enter the
room. This is Talking Communities software just like what you may have used at the Friends Of Bookshare chats. If you have not downloaded the software in the past few weeks, go ahead and do it when you get to the Politics Room. There is a new version of the conference software with better accessibility in it, and it sounds better too.

Once you choose to enter the Politics Room, you will be sent to another page
where you should enter your real name . You are asked for a password but
you do not need one. Just tab to okay and hit enter. That should place you
in the Politics Room with the rest of us. The way to talk
using your mike is to press the control key. You’ll hear a little beep when it’s your turn to talk. If you do not have a mike, you can still participate by typing
text messages to the group. Mac users can hear the discussion but can only type text messages for now. We hope that will change soon. I look forward to seeing all of you later. We’re going to have fun tonight.

I will always remember President Bush for one very special thing. He had the guts to read from the book of Judges at the funeral of the shuttle crew. To me, that was our president at his finest hour. To hear him reading Scripture that wasn't just a rehash of the 23rd Psalm was wonderful, inspiring, and it moved me to tears and praise at the same time. I hope I will never forget that as long as I live. Historians will focus on his military strategies, economics, and his style of command. I will remember something that is far more intimate and personal. We won't know the full result of Bush's military strategy for another decade or so. We won't see the result of his economic policy for another five years or so. I do see the result of that day when he reached to God for guidance, mercy, and healing. That is what I choose to remember.

You all know I've had pneumonia for awhile, a viral one with a secondary bacterial infection. It was mostly in my right lung. Now it has entered the left lung, and it's making this week particularly painful. I feel as if I have smoked 3 packs of cigarettes all at once. Breathing in hurts, and my lungs just ache. I've cracked a rib from the hard coughing, and that doesn't add to my Christmas cheer. My chest and stomach muscles feel bruised as if they had been punched or kicked.

I know I'm lucky that I don't need to be hospitalized like I did with my worst bout with this germ. That doesn't really help me get out of the funk I'm in though. I couldn't do any of the things I like to do before Christmas like baking cookies with the kids or going carroling. I can't even make fudge with my daughter, and this was the year I was planning to teach her to make our family recipe by herself. I had to watch the kids decorate cookies from across the room in case I'm contagious, couldn't hold my baby niece at all, and going out of the house was out of the question. So I feel a lot more like Scrooge than I want to.

I just wish this could be over. Or that I could sleep through it all. My body is exhausted, but my mind is bored and is tired of being in bed. I haven't taken my narcotic cough syrup for 3 nights now, and I'm finally ready to admit defeat on that point. I didn't want to keep using it because I know narcotics can be addictive. Now I just want relief and some peace.

Thanks for listening to me complain. I'll be in a better mood tomorrow. If not, I'll keep it to myself. :)

I am having an absolute ball with the new LJ Bookmarklet This makes sharing stuff from the web so darned easy! :D I've had this feature available from WordPress for over a year now. LJ does it better, and I'm so thrilled to have it. Three cheers for the LJ developers! :D

For those using a screenreader, just add the bookmarklet to your favorites or bookmarks. You can even use AutoHotkey to make a little script to click the bookmark on your toolbar for you with a hotkey. I have the bookmarklet on my Firefox toolbar and just use the Jaws cursor to click it. I'll do more with it later when I don't feel so lazy. ;)

Interesting story. Have any of you bothered to buy a Blu-ray player?
BetaNews | CES Countdown #12: Has streaming media already rendered discs obsolete?

Yes! I have a coworker who regularly sends mail to the wrong people. Apparently her Outlook Express address book is a bit too challenging for her. :) I've gotten love letters meant for her boyfriend a few times. I laughed to myself and replied to let her know what had happened to her notes. I thought she'd spend some time learning or fixing what was going wrong. She apologized and seemed imbarrassed at the time. She's still sending emails to the wrong place several times a month though. Now I just groan and delete them as soon as I see that the mail isn't meant for me. I still like her. I have lost some professional respect for her though. I just think she's scatterbrained, and it's hard to take her seriously in meetings when you have read about her Minnie Mouse jammies and Donald Duck slippers. I don't know whether to directly offer to teach her to use her address book or just keep my mouth firmly shut, deleting her emails as necessary. I wonder what Miss Manners would say about this.

One of my happier Christmas memories is of time spent with my former mother-in-law. She was born in Germany, and she opened up a whole new way of eating to me. She filled our stockings with treats from Europe and gave us gifts of German and Swiss cookies and candies. I think about her often during this time of year. This site carries many of the treats I came to love, food that now feels like part of who I've become. I especially like the gingerbread coated with chocolate or the sugar-coted ginger cookies. If you've never had these, you may think the combination of ginger and chocolate sounds strange. That was how I felt. All I can say is that they grew on me, and I love them now. Have fun exploring this site. They've got great chocolates too. :)
German food from GermanDeli.com

Hmm. Nope. No poems. I didn't enjoy poetry in school and still don't. I don't like to have to guess at what someone means. I'm from the "say what you mean or don't say anything" school of thought. :)

I do like thinking about long summer nights though. I wish I were in Australia right now. I wish I could afford to go to Hawaii every winter. I wish I lived near the ocean where cold weather is rare and it stays sunny most of the time. I wish I were wearing my brick-colored shorts with a tanktop in a light shade of peach, with my bare arms and legs stretched out to soak up the sun and the scent of my green apple body spray mixing with the salt breeze from the ocean. I can almost feel the wind in my hair as I run down the beach, letting the warm, salty, ocean breeze stir my heart as wind stirs the sails on boats nearby. I want to run until I can't anymore. I wish I could lean back on my lounge chair and just enjoy the rhythm of the waves, letting them loll me into a gentle rest.

Hi, everybody. Pneumonia seems to be a recurring issue for me, and it's back
for its latest visit. Talk about an unwelcome guest! That's why I've been
signed out of Skype and had my cell phone turned off. It hurts to talk, and
I've been doing my best to get some rest. Sleep is hard to come by, and I
didn't want anything to wake me if I'd managed to get to sleep. Knowing the
symptoms, I caught it early this time, and that means I don't need to go to
the hospital for oxygen. Been there, done that, and I don't want another
T-shirt. ;)



There is one thing different about this time. All the times before, I felt
the need to keep pushing myself to do stuff both around the house and
online. I felt like I'd lose my value as a person if I didn't perform and
that I couldn't just sleep and be quiet. This time I don't. I feel more like
resting, letting God deal with things, and waiting to see what happens next.
I don't have the energy to rebel, against God or my doctor. My to-do list is
on hold and hasn't been opened since Friday. :-) I'm not sicker than last
time. My reaction is just different. I'm counting on my value to be ok with
God while I rest and that He'll take care of the details. I'm even too tired
for my mom's typical guilt trip about getting things done to work. I
recognize it but don't feel the need to rise to the bait.



My friend Laura Ann and her mom, Lucile, sent me some tea and spearmint
leaves for my birthday awhile back. I'm making cups of lemon myrtle tea and
steeping spearmint in the tea as well. That feels good on my throat and
helps me get comfortable. What a wonderful gift they gave me. :-)



When I couldn't sleep last night, I read part of a book I think my friend
Lisa scanned for Bookshare. It's a Bible study about the letters of
Galatians and Ephesians. I haven't spent much time in Galatians at all, and
I learned some really important things last night. I even got some of my
questions answered about the purpose of the Jewish law and how we can know
for sure that Salvation is extended to Gentiles. I asked God to teach me
something important and then sort of mentally let go and started to read.
God answered my prayer. I'm not exactly sure why what I learned is important
right now. Maybe it's one of those foundational pieces of the puzzle I need
before I can learn or understand something else. I do at least understand
now why I am not required to observe the Jewish feasts or live under the law
of Moses. I also have a new appreciation for the dedication of my friends
who are observant Jews.



I'm spending this afternoon drinking hot tea and broth, catching up on
email, and reading a mystery called Blood At The Root, by Peter Robinson.
It's well-written with a good plot so far. I'm about halfway through the
book at this point. It's one of the Inspector Banks series set in Yorkshire.
I have a passion for British mysteries.



My next shipment of Netflix movies has some Perry Mason episodes and a movie
based on Agatha Christie's Miss Marple called A Pocketful Of Rye. It'll be
fun to lie on the couch and watch them with my mom and aunt. They will get
here Tuesday.



I'm headed back to bed. Have a great day, everyone. :-)

Are you in a social media quandry because you've got friends on so many different sites? Your cousin Beth is on MySpace, your best friend from college uses Facebook, and your favorite coworker likes to hang out on Twitter. Your nephew Brian likes Jaiku, whatever that is. 8-) You don't have much time to sign in and read everything, so you end up logging in every few weeks and trying like crazy to catch up somehow. Then you find you've lost your password for Facebook, and you can't remember your own blasted user name for MySpace. If any of this sounds familiar, there is help on the way, and it's easy to set up too. :)

I'm mentioning this situation both because I've lived it and because I've gotten four emails and one LJ comment about it just this week. I knew I had to solve this for myself or go crazy. ;) Right now there are so many options and so many new services with their own twist. For blind netizens, the task is made more interesting because many sites use captcha images as part of their sign-up process, and our screenreaders are useless in that area. At last, there are two handy, (and accessible), ways to make this whole thing much easier so you can focus on having fun and staying in touch with your friends.

The first, and best way to handle this is to use a site called FriendFeed. This isn't just another service to join and then set aside because you're busy. Why? Because this site will gather all of your friends on almost 50 different services into one easy-to-use page that you can check out when you have free time. No signing into multiple services just to learn that Beth's buying a condo. your college friend got a tattoo, your coworker has a hot lead for you, and your nephew is forming a rock band. :) This article is a great introduction to FriendFeed that shows you how to set it up for the best results that work the way you do. You can check out my FriendFeed to see how this works. It's free for everyone, and it works even better once you've used it for a few days.

The second tool you can use is a cool tool called Ping.fm. This site lets you post one status message or blog post and send it to several networks at the same time. So you can let Beth, your college friend, your coworker, and your Nephew know that your plane is running late or that you need coffee and will be at Starbucks at nine if they want to join you. If you want, you can even update your status from your cell phone. Just don't do this while in a staff meeting if your boss reads your Facebook page. ;) Then again, your boss may be doing the same thing too. :P

So what do you think. Do these look like good solutions to you? Do you like blog posts about this stuff, or should I do a separate blog for geeky computer stuff? It's a big part of my personality, and I like nothing better than to play with technology, except for maybe reading mysteries and eating chocolate. Lol. I hope no one ever makes me choose. :)

I'm turning off phone and messengers until I get some rest. If you need something, send a carrier pigeon with cough drops and peppermint tea

Thinking. We will soon find that merely thinking the wrong thoughts will be illegal. They'll know you think the wrong thoughts because you own a Bible, go to church, teach your child that God created the world, and expect your child to do chores around the house. And perish the thought that you might expect someone to stand to sing our national anthem, treat our flag with respect, or teach your son to open doors for a lady. :( Our children will need to be removed from such backward thinking to be psychologically retrained in the "right way" and "enlightened way." Parents will serve jail time for teaching their children such "dangerous" beliefs. If the last 20 years are any indication, this is exactly where we will be soon. God help us, litterally!

I'm feeling happy because two books I ordered from Paperback Swap came in the mail today. I got

• The Courage to Love Again : Creating Happy, Healthy Relationships After Divorce, by Sheila Ellison
• What Every Man Wants In A Woman / What Every Woman Wants In A Man, by John Hagee and Diana Hagee

Of course, I'll be scanning them for everyone on Bookshare soon. These books are on the wish list, so I hope I'll find a volunteer to proofread my scans fairly quickly. The ladies who swapped these books did an excellent job with packaging them up, and both books look brand new.

I shouldn't have let my mom see the titles though. Now she's talking about my love life with my aunt as if it's a soap opera. She says she wonders if I might go on a blind date with a guy at church and seems oblivious to me rolling my eyes at her. 8-) Lol. She usually complains about me ordering books about marketing and business life. She tells me a young woman my age should be reading romances. :P Maybe she thinks she's getting to me. I'm having a good laugh about this one. Do moms ever see their daughters as adults? Probably not. :)

Today has been one of those crazy days. Good? Bad? You could look at it either way. I think I'll choose to see the glass as half full. :)

I overslept this morning, something I haven't done in ages. Apparently I heard my alarm, turned it off, and went back to sleep. I don't remember doing it though. :( Anyhow, my daughter got to school on time, but we had to do a lot of rushing around. Of course, we had to be out of granola bars for a quick breakfast, so it was grabbing a banana and racing out the door for her. Fortunately for my daughter, they serve a light breakfast after her chorus practice.

I was pretty annoyed with myself for awhile.

Then I went to see my new dentist. I like him, and his office is warm and cheery. :) He has a friendly staff, and I felt right at home there. The good news is that my toothache isn't due to a cavity. The bad news is that the tooth has a crack in it, and it needs a crown. Since this is over $750, that's not going to happen soon. He said if I let it go, it could begin to involve the root so that I'd need a root canal. If it came to that, I'd have it pulled. It's a back tooth, so people aren't as likely to notice. So for now, I try not to get anything hot or cold on that side of my mouth. I'll revisit this issue in February when my budget has recovered from Christmas and my daughter's basketball feeds.

By this time, the day seemed like a 0 for 2 day. I was starting to feel discouraged. It got better though, and I'm glad of that.

I was hungry, and we stopped at Chick-Fil-A for a chicken sandwich. I discovered that they have a chocolate peppermint shake. Yum! I ordered one and am hooked! There went most of the day's calorie budget. I don't mind though. We're having veggie chili for dinner tonight, so it'll work.

Finally, to make the day brighter, I got AIM installed last night, and a friend popped up today, one that I hadn't talked to in years. We had a great chat about research work, how people learn, and books we're reading. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy his company. He's in grad school working in research, and it was neat to talk to someone who understands some of the things I do at work.

So as a whole, my day has been a 50/50 split. I'll thank God for the good half, ask for His help with the dental thing, and will be thankful that oversleeping didn't cause much actual damage.

Another example of a corporation's inability to learn from history and from others. http://ping.fm/o3CED

A friend of mine has been urging me to try Ping.fm . I could get used to this thing. ;) I might actually post to MySpace more often. :) It really does make posting to various places easier. It's at http://www.ping.fm if you want to check it out. I'm headed for bed. I have to get my daughter up at 5 in the morning since she has an early rehearsal for her Christmas concert. Good night everyone.

I've been thinking about this all day. When I first arrived here, , blogging was new and cool. It still is cool, but it seems different now. I stopped using LJ as much when I started using Twitter. Now that I'm using LJ again, it isn't as satisfying somehow. I miss the back and forth style of Twitter, but I like having more room to write here. I think I need to find a happy medium somehow. Maybe I just feel restless today. I can't quite shake the feeling that when I write here, I'm writing to or at someone. When I use Twitter, I feel like I'm writing with someone, having a conversation. Yet you can't explore thoughts, feelings, and ideas in 140 characters. There's got to be something in the middle somehow. This feels like an itch I can't reach to scratch.

I'm feeling a little bummed that Pownce is closing down. I don't know why since I didn't use it much. I liked its concept, but the software ran too sluggishly. I wanted to see someone fix its bugs and really make it work. I guess I also want a truly viable alternative to Twitter because I think products do better if they have competition. There is more innovation that way. I know I do better when I have someone to scrap with, even when it's all in fun.

Are any of you part of a community that discusses collecting cookbooks or that shares reviews of new ones? I used to be part of a cookbook swap and message board through CompuServe. I really miss it. It would be great to find something similar somewhere.