While I'm on a roll...Printers!

Well, I've been looking for a printer lately. I need one fast, before school gets into full swing. I've done a ton of research, and found one website extremely helpful because it is unbiased and thorough. I thought I'd share it with you as a resource if you're in the business for a new printer. Yes, it's a UK production, so everything is indicated in Euros, but the reviews are stellar.

Other good resources are Kim Komando, who also puts out an excellent newsletter regarding computer know-how that's easy to understand; and Cnet.com, who rates products on the standard 1 to 10 scale.

I think I've settled on the Canon MP600. I'm going to read a bit more, & then I'll let you know for sure, but this seems to be the best multifunction printer for the price range.

It's Been Soooo Long!!!

I know a lot of you think I fell off the face of the internet, but I'm back. I'm slowly working through my emails & slowly updating my blog, etc.

I don't know about y'all, but I had an AWESOME summer!! I mean, totally fabulous. I finished my enlistment April 24, 2007. Yup, I'm out of the Navy! I'm still inactive reserves, which gives me the benefits of going on base, shopping at the commissary, and maintaining a military ID, but I don't have to deploy! Yay! I really had a lot of mixed feelings by the time my last day rolled around. It was hard--I mean, here I had spent 5 years doing something really fulfilling, and that part of my life was ending. It was like leaving a part of me behind. It helped that I was leaving for a cross-country trip with LeAnne, though. I was able to just relax and enjoy seeing the country instead of grieving.



So I moved out of my apartment at the end of April, but I still had some loose ends to tie up in Whidbey Island. I pitched a tent on base and camped out for about a week while I finished up everything, including selling my truck. It was really kind of miraculous because some guy just appeared out of nowhere and paid me a fair price for a vehicle I was desperate to get rid of. LeAnne and I had decided to just take her car to Alabama, since she was coming with me, and we figured my truck wouldn't make the trip. Besides, we wanted to really immerse ourselves in the land and culture as we crossed over to the South.



When everything was in order, we took off, heading first to Bend, Oregon. I won't go into the details here, because there is an entire travel blog that LeAnne and I wrote that you can see here, which details our super-fun trip. The only aggravating thing is the posts have rearranged themselves out of order, so here's the correct order: Pre Trip; Bend; Crater Lake; San Frannie; Vegas; The GC; and Alabama.



Once we got to Alabama, we didn't have a place to stay. The Navy had moved our belongings into storage so we had to find a place so that they could deliver our stuff. By the time we arrived, we'd had it. We were both sick of traveling, and we really wanted to settle back down into a routine. I mean, I just spent 5 years in a very regimented lifestyle, and then followed it up with 2 months of doing what I wanted. To be honest, I was sooo ready to get back into following a schedule, and having my own place to come home to.



We found a house in Jacksonville for a great price. We decided to rent because of various reasons, including the fact that neither one of us was employed at the time, so that really puts the brakes on buying a house. Besides, I really wanted to focus on getting ready for my Senior year, and being ready to be mobile once I graduated to find a good job. No sense in getting sucked into J'ville with a mortgage. Anyway, it was another one of those deals where everything fell into place. We looked EVERYwhere for a house to rent, and they were all either too expensive or too gross. This one was perfect. It's so close to the campus that I can walk to my classes.



Seriously, we are so blessed. Right now in my life everything seems to be working out great. I'm enjoying my time being back home in Alabama. It's so awesome to be able to go visit all my family. I love it!!! I've missed them all sooo much, and I feel closer to them now for some reason. Maybe my Paw Paw getting sick prompted me to realize how much they all mean to me...I mean, I've always been aware of it, but it really showed the importance of maintaining an active relationship with your family. No one's gonna love you like they do!




Classes start tomorrow. I'm so nervous. I've got one class where the prof wants us to buy 14 books. I thought it was so ludicrous that I went and asked someone else to verify it. My classes this semester aren't going to be a walk in the park. But everything about my graduation just fell in my lap. I was concerned that I wouldn't be able to graduate in the Spring of next year due to a technicality. However, because I had completed some coursework in the Navy, everything again fell into place and I will now graduate in the Spring of 2008. I'm really excited!!! Finally. Yeah, I'll be 30. But I know I had to choose the path I did to get where I am now. I wouldn't change it for anything. I know that going back to school at my age gives me an advantage over traditional students. I just hope I don't get stuck in any classes full of freshmen.




Since I've left the Navy I've been lagging on my daily workouts. However, LeAnne and I have participated in a number of 5k runs in the area, and we also joined the Anniston Runners Club. I'm looking forward to meeting cool people in the club. We've had a great time going to these runs, but it's so different running in 95 degree heat with a heat index of 105, as opposed to running in cool, comfortable Washington. Who knew I'd miss it?!




We found a kickin' rock climbing area about an hour from J'ville that we've hit a few times. Lots of talented climbers out there. I've definitely got climbing fever, and I nag LeAnne all the time about going. This weekend was great because my dad and my sister were in town for a visit at grandma's. We took them out to Weaver Caves, where we harnessed Avery up and she climbed up the wall, showing some pretty impressive talent. I'm hoping that we can get her to come stay with us so we can take her to do stuff again. Grandma even came out there to watch, being a good sport about it. We had to leave after awhile, though, because the place seriously turned into Redneck City. I guess the caves is the local hoedown place for the weekend. The picture above is my grandma, my dad, my sister, LeAnne, and me.

This one's of Avery kicking ass on the wall.
















That's about it for now. It's good to be back online!

Watch 'The Daily Show?' You probably know more than Fox Viewers...

As reported by Editor & Publisher on April 15th, a new study out by Pew Research Center found out people who watch Jon Stewart's The Daily Show are more informed on today's issues than people who regularly get their news from Fox News. And to think that Bill O'Reilly has said before that the people who watch The Daily Show are only "stoned slackers."

Incidentally, I think I'll take this opportunity to express how much I dislike this hot-headed moron. You ever watch this guy? When he starts to feel like he's not 'winning' an argument, he resorts to name-calling. Then he justifies it by saying it's 'his house' and he can do what he wants because it's his show. That's fine, because it just demonstrates his true nature of hatefulness and how he's just pure poison with his bad attitude (and maligned viewpoints). He's such a prime example of everything that's wrong with the 'moral right.'

Here's a great website that has information in cold, hard facts as to how pervasive his lies are and just what a general creep he is, from how he claimed he had '6 million viewers' (grossly inaccurate), to numerous lies he tells on his show all the time.

Best Buy Busted

A little over a week ago, Best Buy admited to scamming in-store customers after buckling under pressure from Connecticut's State Attorney General who launched an investigation into their practices. The way the scam works is a customer sees an advertised price for an item online, which brings them into the store. Once they get there, they pick up the item and bring it to the counter with the quoted price in mind. They tell the salesperson, who then pulls up a hidden 'intranet' site (fraudulent to the consumer) which indicates a different and higher price than the one the customer found online. By this time, the customer is probably going to go ahead and buy the item at a higher price. What a dirty practice.

Get Out of Your Cell Phone Contract

Feeling like you're being nailed to the wall by your current cell phone provider? There are 3 online services available for you to get out of your contract by selling it to another person or by trading for a different contract. These websites offer a place for people to buy and/or sell cell phone contracts in order to make it more convinient. You can find them at celltradeusa.com, cellswapper, and resellular.

Free Copies of Microsoft Office Pro 2007 and Groove 2007

Hey, want a (legal) free copy of the new Microsoft Office? Just attend one of their seminars. It's a promotional thing for their new products, of course, but if you go, they'll give you copies of the software. I've tried out the beta version of Office 2007, and it seems to be a big step up from 2003. The interface and styling have changed, and from the features I've played around with it seems pretty slick. Unfortunately, the seminar in Alabama has already come & gone. If you're in Washington, though, you're in luck...The upcoming seminar will be on the 26th of February.

As far as Vista goes, I plan on checking it out soon. I hear it's great. If you are looking at purchasing the new OS, first you need to make sure that your computer is ready for it. Go here to use Microsoft's Update Advisor, which will tell you whether or not you are equipped to upgrade to Vista. After that, look into upgrading to Vista vice paying outright, because the price difference is substantial. You don't have to pay full price for it, even if you do not have a previously installed microsoft OS.

Daily Rant

Chinese Wonders

Whoa is just about all I can say about this. There is a park in China where you pretty much shimmy your way around a cliff on wooden planks, while holding on with just your hands to a chain. My palms began to sweat as I looked at the pictures of people working their way up the mountain. The end seems to be some sort of lookout point with a building whose purpose is unknown. I have tried to find additional information about this park, but I can't seem to locate any through search engines. The link to all of the pictures is here.













Another thing I wanted to share is a link to an ice and snow festival that happens every year in Harbin, China. Both the snow sculptures and the ice palaces are amazing in their mass and are intricately carved to create a vivid picture. Teams come from all around the globe to compete for the coveted honor of first place. The Harbin Ice and Snow Festival is a must-see, if only on the net, as it's one of the largest in the world.

BBC's mini-guide in pictures to the festival.

More pics here.

Bored? Check Out Some Weird News

I found a great website that gives odd news, called Peculiarosities.com. There's one where a woman had a spider living in her ear for 27 days! Another was about a man who coughed up a nail that had been in his body for 35 years from a gardening accident.

Another site like this that has odd, sometimes important, sometimes inane, and just random news links is called fark.com, and it is a perma-link on my blog (to the right).

Finally, check out M-Law's Wacky Warning Label website (M-Law is Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch). There's some doozies. However, the one that got top prize, about not putting people in washing machines? Well, if you refer back to the first website, you'll find that maybe it's not that far-fetched to think that someone will stuff themselves into one (dryers too).

ESWS Qualification

I finally got ESWS qualified back on the 23rd of January!! Yay! I am so glad to finally be done with all of that!! I am also glad I decided to go ahead and get the qual. It's great just for my own personal satisfaction to know that I didn't slack off at the end of my naval career; instead I stuck with it. Plus, it'll be great for my final eval & to put on my resume. I guess the best thing, though, is it reminded me on how much I can accomplish when I set my mind to it. I'm not trying to brag too much here, but I gotta toot my horn on this one b/c I'm just really proud of myself. I worked really hard to get this, and it's an honor. I have renewed confidence in myself because I accomplished this, when before I was having some doubts as to how I'd be able to jump back into college after being gone so long. I know I won't have many problems now, and it feels great.

Vitameatavegamin

A recent investigation by consumerlab.com indicates that multi-vitamins may be doing more harm than good. They tested 39 different vitamins, and of those, 12 failed completely. You can get the complete results at their website; however, an article on MSNBC.com gave some of the results. It said one of the women's vitamins (The Vitamin Shoppe Multivitamins - Especially for Women) had an alarming amount of lead present, while a children's vitamin contained too much Vitamin A, which can be harmful, especially to youngsters. Although there are no regulations controlling the amounts of lead that can be in a consumable product, you don't want too ingest too much of it. Too much includes the amounts present in one of these vitamins! The good thing is most of the popular brands out there, such as One-A-Day Women & Centrum Silver, passed the test. It was suggested that this is probably because these larger companies have a lot more at stake - their reputation amongst consumers could cause serious damage to their sales if it was discovered they were not up to standards. Check out MSNBC.com's article for a good starting point on the topic.

For information on vitamins in general, check out the Harvard School of Public Health's website. Their site will give you a breakdown on the major vitamins and nutrients needed. An alternate site, which is equally informative, is put out by Oregon State University.

Port Visit

We finally got to pull into port a few days ago on the 16th. It was such a relief to be on land again; we hadn't got off the boat since we left on the 27th of November last year. We ported in Naha, Okinawa, where we were able to get a few supplies, walk around and explore the area for 2 days, and just get away from the boat. It was so great -- I didn't realize how much I missed being able to have some freedom until we stepped down the gangway.

The sunrise was beautiful over the harbor as we entered. Physically & metaphorically, it was the best I've seen.

Our first day in port consisted of going to the NEX and restocking up on essentials. While we were waiting for the bus to take us from Camp Kinser to Camp Foster, we walked along the shore which was littered with trash. Someone had even discarded an old television. Is this a sign of the future?

That evening, we ate dinner in a restaurant that is literally in a tree. Fake as it may be, it was still quite an experience to be perched up over the harbor while eating dinner. The food was not so hot, though. There wasn't much appetizing to choose from: things like raw cod liver, bowels of something, chicken cartilidge, and pig ears just didn't spark my interest. I'm not exaggerating, either -- it was like a menu at a feed store. Anyway, after this, Amanda and I walked down to Kokusai Dori Street, which is Naha's version of Bourbon St. The gaudy neon lights made it seem like a full-on casino. This went on for miles, and we walked most of it that night, stopping in shops and taking pictures of the most interesting attractions.

Something unique to Okinawans, (and perhaps all Japanese, I don't know for sure), is 'habu sake.' It is made with the venom of snakes, and as you can see here, they pickle the entire snake in the jar. The effects are said to be much like absinthe, and one shot can knock you off of your feet. I think the price alone is enough to knock you down -- yen to dollar right now, just move the decimal over 2 places...These bottles are ranging from $400 to $600...and we saw some up to $800!

The gal I was shopping around with is Amanda, who is my roomate out here. We've become friends during the trip; she's turned out to be an exceptionally kind person, and a great roomate.

The next day, we decided that we would walk to nearby Camp Kinser where the closest phones were so that we could call home. We didn't think it would take very long, as it had only seemed like a few minutes ride by car the previous day. Two hours later...we finally got there, sweating from the muggy weather outside. We spent another couple of hours in the open foodcourt, calling people to see how things were going back home.

My grandfather is doing better in some respects, worse in others. It was really great to finally get to speak to my family without constantly worrying about the conversation dropping over the tenuous satellite connection. He actually recognized who I was, and we had a pretty good conversation, which was a relief from the previous developments to his health. I'm anxious to get back to the States so that I can have a reliable means of communicating with him.

After our phone calls, we gave in and called a taxi to take us to Shuri Castle, which was the Ryukyu Kingdom's central place. This was the ruling class from all the way back in the 1400's up until the late 1800's. The castle was impressive, and the workers were busy creating wooden and straw figures which lined the walls leading to the gates. These figures were adorned with flowers of various types and colors, giving them life.

We also witnessed a traditional Japanese fan dance, which was given outside of the courtyard entrance of the castle. Two women would enter the stage and perform a synchronous dance. We later spoke to one of the castle workers who helps to coordinate the dances, and she insisted on us telling everyone we knew to come visit the castle and to come see the dances. So if you're ever in the neighborhood, make sure you stop by.

Here is where the king would sit & look out to his people.

Here's a model photo of how the courtyard would have looked during a gathering.

After touring the castle grounds and surrounding areas, we walked around the park for a little bit, goofing off.

Later, I pulled the map out from my backpack and we began to walk in the general direction of where we thought the monorail was located. We must have looked lost because a woman approached us outside of a minimart and asked where we were trying to go. Her English was slightly broken, but she was fairly easy to understand. She proceeded to give us detailed directions on how to make it to two separate stations, depending on our final destination. Once she felt like we understood, she departed in the opposite direction across the street. As I was waiting for Amanda to use the bathroom, this same woman walks back across the street, grabs my arm, and says, "I will take you there so you do not get lost." We tried to protest her generosity, but she wouldn't hear it. She entered the store before we left and spoke with the worker, who followed her outside with two extra umbrellas, presumably for us. She ended up walking us all the way up the stairs into the station, which was about 3/4 of a mile away, telling us about her town and her people all the way. Once inside, she made sure we knew which stop to get off on. She even showed us exactly how much it would cost and tried to give us the umbrellas so that we would stay dry. Before she departed, she made us promise that if we were to get lost again, we would ask any Okinawan for directions because she said they were good people. We said goodbye to Naomi and boarded the monorail headed for Kokusai Dori, where we planned to have dinner. Once we got off, we headed to the main street, but we weren't sure whether to take a left or a right. Once again, we were approached by another Okinawan lady who asked where we were trying to go. She pointed us in the right direction, and then waited there on the corner while she watched us cross 2 crosswalks to make sure we had gone the right way. She missed her light because of this. I was impressed by the Okinawans we met.

We wound up our day by having dinner at a Japanese restaurant that required us to remove our shoes and sit on the floor on cushions. We were given a table option, but when in Japan...So I ordered a salad, which I have a habit of doing when I don't know what's on the menu other than by the pictures. I didn't know seaweed was salty. If I wanted that, I'd go down to the beach and just open my mouth underwater. It was ok, but I was really wanting some sushi. I swear, the last night in port I'm going to make it to a nice sushi joint.

That was it for our port visit. Now we're back out.

Happy New Year!

To bring in the New Year, let's reflect on 2006 with Time magazine's 'Year in Pictures:'
http://www.time.com/time/yip/2006/

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree, How Beautiful Your Array Is...

Merry Christmas, everybody, from the Mildet on the USNS Victorious! Here is our group photo with the Christmas tree that our SOC Techs made out of spare array parts. Isn't it lovely?

TA-DAH!

What's up with the little-ol'-penguin in the background??