Chatting with a Friend in Iraq

I know someone who is working in Iraq - a goverment corps of engineers employee in charge of safety who travels around the country. They are building schools, bringing water to villages that never had it -- and much more. He was home for a vacation and we ran into each other at a store.

I asked him if more good than bad was happening in Iraq. He said the followers of Saddam are not happy, but the other people are seeing many improvements. They had built over 200 schools, brought water to over 50 villages and made many improvements.

I was impressed and gladdened to hear about the important and good things happening in Iraq. Not every city is a raging war zone. With the way things are reported, I think people are seeing a one-sided picture. Much good is happening there, too.

Cedar Waxwings in the Morning

I saw a very pretty site just before dawn today. My walking friend, Jennifer C. pointed out these birds in a tree at the park this morning. We weren't sure what kind they were until the sun finally rose above the mountain highlighting their golden color -- and then she recognized them as cedar waxwings.

I did a Google search to learn that they are not usually found this far south in the United States. This must be a migration group heading north.  They made a sweet little sound and looked almost like they were glowing in the first light of day. I tried to take a picture of it. (Click on the image to enlarge.)

Online Word Processor - AjaxWrite.com

Ajax-Write.com is a free online site - no registration required -  where someone can create or edit Word and other kinds of documents from their own hard drive. Some people think this is the future of word processing. I don't know if I agree or not, but for now, it is very interesting. Give it a try.

XBox 360 - I Want One

I have been watching my daughter and son-in-law play their new game machine for weeks now. I have no time to play it, but I want one anyway. (Maybe I can train myself to only need 3 hours of sleep a night. Ha!) This looks soooo good on their HDTV. I think I am going to visit their place more often. My daughter is playing Oblivion and it looks very cool.

How can I justify the cost when I have no time? Oh well, there's none available right now. I don't have to suffer tempation until I see them back in Wal-Mart when I have to walk past the demo to get my groceries. I may never get past that demo if the new machines come in.

Adobe Premier Elements 2.0 & Rebate Attempts

It just came in the mail with a 30-dollar rebate offered, BUT -- they want a receipt and they say a "packing list" does not count. What now? I ordered it from Amazon.com and the list in the box is the only written thing I have. Argh! Is this just another way to get out of actually sending the money?

Otherwise, reviewers say this is the best program for putting together home videos. I guess I will try to find something on Amazon and print it out and send it along with what looks like a receipt in the box but might actually be a packing list -- and hope it works out. Rebates are nice, but such a pain. Can't somebody make this easier?

Once we bought a monitor from Samsung and the rebate people refused to accept the bar code. It was the only bar code on the box, but for some reason, they did not like it. Maybe their bar code reader had trouble reading it. We double and triple-checked and it was the right model, etc. The store even printed a rebate form for us. We were ripped off.

The Last Season of Star Trek Enterprise

We missed the last season of Enterprise on TV, so we are finally catching up with the DVDs. Funny that the DVDs are much better quality than could be had on TV -- and no ads makes it perfect.

This last season was pretty good -- I'd say it was the best of all the Enterprise seasons. Alas, the series was doomed by then. (We weren't even watching it.)

On a related note, the new Dr. Who series is great -- gotta love that British humor. I know we'd get a better picture if we waited for the DVDs to come out this summer. I wish the Sci-Fi channel would go to HD format already.

Music Video Tailored to Your Weather & Location

This is a fascinating site. When you visit, it reads your ISP, automatically notes your location and delivers a specially-tailored music video to your location, weather and time. Just select "Play Dynamic Flash Version."

Truly interesting - I just wish I could input other locations and see what those videos look like, but at least this site offers links to past videos of other locations around the world.

How Many Ancestors Do You Have?

I found this in Dick Eastman's excellent genealogy newsletter. It's a chart showing how many ancestors you have for each generation back. For example, go back one generation and you have two ancestors (your parents). Go back another generation and you have your grandparents plus your parents or six ancestors all together. Just ten generations back and you have over a THOUSAND ancestors. Whew! Here's the chart from Dick's newsletter.