SnipUrl.com

Saw this tip on The Screen Savers. Make a short web address for any site. For example, I have a site address of https://www.angelfire.com/folk/morgan/ped/pedigreecharts.htm and I can make a new url that also goes to it -- http://snipurl.com/pedigrees. This is similar to TinyUrl that I wrote about earlier, only with SnipUrl, you can make your own shortcut word.

On the other hand, I have a domain name with subdomains, so I don't really need this for every site. The same site above can be found at http://pedigrees.matson.info.

This is most useful for long website addresses that are being shared with others. The service is free. No registration is required. It's very quick.

Cold? Need a Warm Bowl of Soup?

Try http://www.joyofsoup.com and for chocolate lovers, here's a site from my sister, Deborah --> http://www.justchocolaterecipes.com. Could someone please invent a world where we can eat all we want without it killing us?

MyRSS.com

Thinking about domains and domain names, I did a search for "BamaBlog" to see if anyone else was using the name. Surprise! Surprise! I stumbled upon a site that is monitoring my blog and providing a kind of RSS channel --> BamaBlog at RSS.com.

I like it! The only problem is that they currently list the topics in my most recent archive but they link to the main page. Unless they are paid, they will not update more often. Oh well.

Living in the Least-Stressful City

I once lived in what was just announced as the least-stressful mid-sized city in the country -- Provo (and Orem) Utah. (They are like one big city.)

I was going to college there in the late seventies. Being a student was a mite stressful. I also gave birth to two children there -- a bit on the stressful side -- so I really can't tell you from personal experience if these cities were the least stressful or not. I liked them at the time except I got tired of the long winter and much snow. Maybe I should have taken up skiing since Utah has some of the best in the country, but after a friend from Alabama broke her leg skiing, I lost the desire for it. I did a bit of snowshoe hiking, though. That was fun for about the first hour, then I was too cold to care about anything but finding somewhere warm.

I much prefer Alabama. It is the least stressful to me -- lots of good green scenery and good people here and you can hike all year around without needing snowshoes. Mobile ranked 7th as the most stressful large urban area in the country. Birmingham was way down the list at 40th (in the large urban category).

As for mid-sized cities, Montgomery was the 19th most stressful. Huntsville was the 36th least stressful.

Chocolate that Looks Like Potato Chips

Walking around Wal-Mart and being something of an impulsive shopper, I grabbed one of the new candy products they had put way out in the middle of the floor so impulsive and clumsy people like me would bump into them. Imagine that -- potato chip-shaped candy. I guess chocolate companies are always trying to come up with new gimmicks.

Since I like potato chips and I like candy, their tactics worked on me. I tried a box. In fact, it was breakfast today (I could eat chocolate for every meal). They tasted nothing like potato chips and a little bit like the original candy bar, but I missed the almonds found in a regular Almond Joy.

Dave, my brother-in-law tried the Reeses version and did not like them. Oh well, I liked mine well enough. Nothing beats the the taste of the actual candy bar, though.

Going to the Moon and Mars

Recent announcements have been made about our country sending people to the moon again and then to Mars. This reminds me of when I was in 5th grade. Our teacher asked us what we wanted to be when we grew up. I said that I wanted to be an astronaut. Because I was a girl, the class laughed at me and I vowed to myself to never tell people what I really wanted to be -- ever again. So, for the next couple of years, I just said that I wanted to be a "teacher."

At age 14, another teacher explained to our class that he had been in astronaut training, a highly competitive field. He was rejected because he did not have perfect 20/20 vision. I knew then that my case was lost -- I was near-sighted and had worn glasses since the age of 8.

Instead, I found enjoyment in reading science fiction and following our own space program. Growing up here in Huntsville, we never thought anything of the ground shaking. It was just another rocket test going on -- nothing unsual. My parents had us all camped out in the living room to watch Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. I read science fiction books written for younger readers.

I am glad we are setting goals to continue the space program. I hope the shuttle keeps flying for a long time, though. They have much work to complete and there will probably need to be shuttles to carry supplies to the permanent moon station.

I also know that this is a lot of election year rhetoric. I hope it will really come about, that we can afford the funding. I suspect the program will take longer than the President is saying because of the cost involved, but I believe much good will come out of working towards these goals as it has in the past - with jobs, inventions and motivation for children to complete school.

Trilingual

Yesterday was just plain nice. Nothing notable happened outside of church except getting much-needed rest. I had a good chat with Dad. The speakers were excellent and inspiring.

I work in the children's class with the very youngest from 18 months through 3 years old. One of my coworkers is from Argentina and the other is from Korea. Besides our Sunday School lesson, we taught a little bit of each language -- Spanish and Korean for eye, nose, mouth, hair and ear. Our children are going to be a bit trilingual.

Wireless Mice Rock

I wanted to try the hyped "tilt wheel" option that the new Microsoft Mice offer. I loved my old wheel mouse, but the wheel would rub my finger raw while the new tilt wheels have a soft rubber covering with smoother scrolling.

After researching and finding that wireless mice are much improved today (the old ones had to sit in a recharger and ran out quickly -- the new ones claim to last 6 months on two AA batteries), I jumped in.

This mouse is wonderful (so far)! The corded mouse was a pain, always catching on something at my cluttered desk.

I love the fast response (no delay like I thought might happen), the smoother wheel, the extra programmable keys (the wheel itself is a clever button, doing 4 different things), the optical-never-have-to-clean-a-mouseball again feature. It's perfect! Now, to see if the batteries really last 6 months....

Casa Blanca - New Mexican Restaurant

My husband and I tried it out for lunch yesterday. It's yet another Mexican place in Huntsville, across from Grissom High School on Bailey Cove Road.

Ironically, this is located next to a fitness club. Maybe after someone eats here, they can go work it off. Or maybe seeing very fit people walking out of the club will be diet incentive to not buy so much.

Casa Blanca has great atmosphere. It was decorated from top to bottom. Even the ceiling was decorated. I loved the chairs, each individually designed and the many realistic papaya and palm trees. The place shone from top to bottom.

They brought us a small basket of chips and salsa. The chips were warm, a little thicker than most. The salsa was a very different from other places with a strong green chile taste to it. I liked it, but the best salsa in town is at Pepitos (another Mexican place). Still, this salsa's different taste was fresh and good.

They did an acceptable job with the fajitas, giving us plenty with another plate of cold toppings. The food was not outstanding, but served large and good. I wish they offered more shrimp or seafood dishes. I love Mexican seafood such as seafood chimichangas and seafood nachos, but few places offer those around here.

Photoshop won't Open Pictures of Money

This is pretty silly -- according to an entry at Slashdot, it was discovered that the new version of Photoshop will not open pictures of money, giving an error message instead. I saw it demonstrated on The Screen Savers last night -- and it's true. Seems like Adobe has gotten a little too heavy-handed.

Slower.Net

A guy with a simple Canon Powershot camera created his own photo blog site. His pictures are consistently good and inspirational. His home page always goes to a full size of the most recent photo. I love how Slower.net works -- this guy is a great photographer, too -- and, I would guess, pretty good with Photoshop.

Dead Sea Scrolls Exhibit

My husband and I saw this exhibit today. It was a history of the Bible itself, basically. The exhibit opened with a 17-minute film, then we could walk through a couple of rooms to view the items - some originals and others were copies. Tour guides stood by to answer questions and give lectures.

I wonder if many people know about the origin of the Bible as we have it today. I didn't know before this exhibit. It went through several different translations before it was accepted widely with the King James version. The exhibit showed that versions prior to the King James one were not generally liked by religious leaders because of how they slanted certain beliefs or for other reasons.

I enjoyed the exhibit and the tiny 1-inch fragments of the Dead Sea Scrolls we saw. The fragments were black. It's amazing how they could translate them. I wish we could have learned more of what what actually written in the Dead Sea Scrolls, but seeing how the Bible came about in the Middle Ages was fascinating.

This exhibit displayed more of a history of the Bible with copies of various Middle Ages versions. It covered very little of the Dead Sea Scrolls themselves, though it was time well spent.

Baths vs Showers

I've been in too much of a hurry to take baths lately, but I love the concept. I finally took the time to soak in a hot tub on a cold day. It must have been a year or more since I've chosen a bath over a shower. What a difference it made!

After the bath, I was warm, felt softer & cleaner all day and the slight soreness from walking 5 miles was gone. After a shower, I am usually shivering (even though the shower water was very hot, too) and my legs are still sore from not yet being able to sit down after the workout.

Baths are definitely MUCH better. H-m-m-m, I wonder if we could put a TV in the bathroom. I could get used to this. I might never come out.

MyPlace.info

My site host (www.Angelfire.com) made recent changes and started offering domain names as part of their expanded hosting package. Since I had a domain name plus extra features offered at no extra charge with my account, I thought, "Why not?" (In fact, the package with the domain name was cheaper than what I was paying.)

Now, I have another domain name to play with --> MyPlace.info. For now, it has the same information as Matson.info, but I plan to tinker around with it and see what develops. I like the dot info domains because many of the good names are still available.

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