Learn About All Things Web 2.0

I am a big fan of "Web 2.0" applications and web sites. According to a definitions search in Google, Web 2.0 is

"a term often applied to a perceived ongoing transition of the World Wide Web from a collection of websites to a full-fledged computing platform serving web applications to end users. Ultimately Web 2.0 services are expected to replace desktop computing applications for many purposes."

There are countless cool applications and web sites now which can help you do so many things you've never thought about before. I will admit that I like playing with web applications because they are fun. Some of my favorites are Blogger for writing this web site, Del.icio.us for tracking and tagging my bookmarks, Flickr for storing pictures, and 43Things for tracking my goals.

Yesterday I came across a great learning resource. The Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County has created a blog called Learning 2.0 for the purpose of encouraging their staff members to experiment and learn about the new technologies available. It's designed as a self-discovery tutorial with 23 modules to guide your learning. Learning 2.0 very much employs a "learn by doing" format. For example, one of the first tasks assigned is to set up your own blog to which you will post entries to track your progress.

Learning 2.0 teaches you about blogging, about Del.icio.us, RSS feeds, Flickr, audiobooks, YouTube for videos, podcasts, and so much more. Have you ever heard some of these terms and wondered what they meant? More importantly, Learning 2.0 encourages your independent exploration.

If you believe in lifelong learning and are interested in knowing more about web applications I recommend checking out Learning 2.0. In typical blog style, the latest post (right now #22) is at the top. To go to the beginning find the archives links on the right side of the page and click on August 2006. Then you can scroll to the bottom of the screen and read up. Or, you can click on this link to see a simple list of the 23 modules and click on the links in each step there.

Painting Day

Yesterday my sisters and I gathered to paint the ceiling of my mother's living room. It hasn't been painted since I can remember, and there were some stains remaining from water damage that was repaired some time ago. So the paint job was long overdue.

Diega put on the primer on Friday all by herself. Wow, that was a big job. I think she was glad for some helpers to do the rest. Jozi is the homeowner amongst us and had collected some great painting supplies (tarps, roller extensions for us shorties, etc.) which made the job easier.

Here is a photo of all three of us. In the shower caps and latex gloves we look like we should be on some medical TV show.

This is Jozi "getting ready to roll."


Diega did most of the trim work, contorting into all kinds of positions to trim over some of the furniture that couldn't be moved - thanks Diega!


Even Tony suited up ready to help.


It was a long day and I think we all came away sore, but it's great to have the job done.

If you would like to see more pictures from the day, go here.

Did You Vote This Week?

Here in Washington we held primary elections on Tuesday. Most people vote by mail these days, and in many counties it is mandatory. Clay and I enjoy going to the polls together though and will probably continue to do so as long as it is an option.

Federal laws now mandate that handicapped voters be provided some accommodation for accessible voting. In King County that means a new machine, called the Accessible Voting Unit (AVU). This is a photo of the unit which was available beginning in May. Tuesday was the first time Clay and I have seen the new unit.

The AVU makes it easier for people with limited sight to vote without assistance. Clay gave the unit a try when filling his ballot. Basically it employs touch screen technology. Or, if you preferred, you could choose to use audio. That takes extra time though, and if you have enough sight to see the touch screen that works great. They had options for making the text larger and changing to a higher contrast screen.

At the end of the process the machine prints a record of your vote, which you can review and then finalize. Clay thought it worked pretty well. His only suggestions were that the method provided for reviewing the paper included only a single flat magnifier and he would have preferred better magnification for that and perhaps a light as your body casts a shadow as you bend over to look at it.

So how did Clay fill a ballot before the new machine? Slowly, with his own magnifier in hand. If the ballot was lengthy he might get a backache from bending over the caroll provided.

For anyone who would like to know more about the new unit there is information here.

It's a Doozy

I took the day off yesterday and Clay and I went to the Puyallup Fair. It was a pretty drizzly day, but we had fun anyway.

First, we had to check out the Smart Cars. I-5 Motors was displaying a few from their inventory. These are two-seater vehicles popular in Europe. Various reports indicate they get anywhere from 40 to 60 miles to the gallon, and the prices seem to run around $25,000-$30,000. That's too pricey for us, but they were pretty cute!


While at the fair we did a bunch of looking around and found some amazing results from the pumpkin carving contest. Here is Clay with just one example.


Of course we enjoyed our annual fair burgers with the Walla Walla sweet onions. As we got to the fair later in the day, we stayed later into the evening. There was a Credence Clearwater concert which started about 7. We didn't sit in the grandstand to watch the concert, but the music was playing loudly enough we were able to enjoy it as we walked around looking for such goodies as kettle corn. Here's one view of the nighttime sights.


All in all it was a fun day at the fair. As the commercial proclaims, "It's a Doozy!"

Mail Love from Eilat, Israel

Sometime last year I met a lovely woman from Israel through PostcardX. We correspond infrequently, but she sends the most wonderful things in the mail. My friend lives in Eilat, which is a resort town at the southern tip of Israel. It's on the Red Sea and behind the city is the desert where you will find Timna Park (King Solomon's Mines). I learned about Timna Park from a brochure my friend sent earlier this year.

The other day I got an envelope from her containing a beautiful tourist map of her city and a folder with a set of postcards of Eilat. This folder was apparently one meant to be given out to tourists from France. There was a message from the mayor of Eilat inside welcoming French tourists and explaining that the postcards included could be taken home as a souvenir or sent to friends at home to show off the beautiful city of Eilat.

At first I didn't see the postcards, but was engrossed in reading the message. You see, the message was written in French and I was actually able to read most of it without too much difficulty. I took French in school, but that was a very long time ago! It was while reading in the message about the postcards that I realized there were postcards enclosed. They are too beautiful to keep only for myself. I had to share them here:

I also want to share a little of my friend's message:

"As you know, our summer vacation was not exactly what we had wanted it to be, but me and all my family and friends are okay. Hoping and praying that there will be no war again."

Amen to that.

Good News

Well it looks like we lucked out on the bagged spinach trouble. Authorities have narrowed the E. coli contaminated spinach problem to a large farm in California. The farm is owned by a company called Natural Selection. If you go to this page on their web site you will find the company's statement which includes a list of about 30 brand names under which they sell spinach.

The good news? Our bagged spinach was from Fresh Express - an unrelated company. As we breathe a sigh of relief for our own health, our thoughts and prayers are with all the people who are sick from eating contaminated spinach. News reports today show almost 100 people sick across 20 states (including Washington) and those numbers continuing to grow. It must be almost a feeling of betrayal to eat what you thought was not only tasty but also very healthy for you, and then get sick from it.

If we are lucky the growers will learn from this and the food supply will become more safe in the weeks and months ahead. I wonder how many people will be inspired to start growing their own vegetables.

Will We Get Sick?

Last night I got home late and threw together some quick dinner for Clay and me. Part of our dinner was this great salad from a bag that we like to eat which consists of a mix of half spinach and half "spring mix" or romaine and baby leaf lettuce. I like to add some fresh mushrooms and tomatoes to it, and it makes a great starter to our meal.

We had our dinner, cleaned up a bit, and then Clay went to the computer to check online news stories. The next thing I know he was asking me if there was bagged spinach in our salad. "Yes, why??" "Come here!" he beckoned me to the computer. The story on the screen was a bit alarming. It was similar to this one: "Deadly E. coli outbreak linked to bagged spinach spreads to ninth state." It seems dozens of people were getting sick from eating bagged spinach and one person has already died. Yikes!

The news story recommended that no one eat bagged spinach until they figure this out. But of course we learned about it too late.

The symptoms of E. coli begin with cramping, diarrhea and vomiting and can end up in renal failure for some. It's not a fun thing if you get it. Symptoms generally show up between 3 and 9 days after eating something containing the bacteria. We're crossing our fingers that the spinach we ate was not contaminated. We should know in a few days.

Thinking Rock ROCKS!

I have a lot of difficulty juggling my many "to do list" tasks. The biggest problem is that I don't really have an organized system for keeping track of those tasks. Sure, I write lists all the time. I even keep with me a notebook for thoughts as they come to me. But it's just one long list, or many short ones. They are not organized by topic in any way, so reviewing the list to figure out what I need to do is difficult.

I am a fan of the GTD system, which is a methodology for collecting, processing, organizing, reviewing and doing your tasks. I'm very good at the first step - collecting, but that's about as far as I get successfully. There are many software applications out there for handling tasks GTD style, and I have tried a few of them. So far none have been quite right for me. So I keep going back to a paper system which is very customizable, but I have a tendency to lose track of the papers and then I have to start over.

A few days ago I came across this new software called ThinkingRock. It's pretty new, but so far I love what it does. It handles the various steps in GTD style and seems to think the way I think. One of my problems is that my head categorizes a task in several different ways - by project, by the context where it should be done, and by topic such as "work" or "personal" or "friends and family." This software does the same thing! You enter a task once and can sort and filter the list by many criteria. It also handles projects well letting you designate tasks and subprojects for any project with lots of space for freeflow notes about the project. And you've got to love their logo (see above).

I've had ThinkingRock installed for a couple days, and so far I still love it. The test will be if I'm using it 10 days from now. If anyone wants to check it out, you can find it here: http://www.thinkingrock.com.au/

Our First Open House

Today Clay and I looked at our first house. We're not really ready to start the home search process as we have lots of prep work to do first, but we saw a listing for this manufactured home in Kent and decided to check it out. We want to look at a lot of homes to get a feel for the market and what kind of house we could get for a given price.

Lucky for us our good friend Susan loves to look at houses. She planned to meet us at the home, and by the time we got there she had already taken the tour, had some cider and cookies, and met the neighbors! She also gathered a bunch of information for us while she was at it. Thanks Susan!

The house was pretty cute - don't you love the front windows? It reminded me a lot of my sister Jozi's manufactured home which is really nice.

This one will be gone before we are ready to purchase anything, but we'll keep our eye on it just in case.

No Glasses for Clay?

Clay had an appointment with his eye surgeon on Tuesday.

The doctor says all looks well. He was able to see Clay's optic nerve which wasn't possible prior to the surgery. That's a good thing because with a view of the optic nerve they can see any problems sooner rather than later. The view looked good and the doctor is very pleased, so of course we are very pleased.

We have been curious to know if and when glasses might be in Clay's future. During the last couple of visits the doctor used various tests to measure Clay's distance vision. As a result of those tests the doctor made comments such as "we are just about at 0." We weren't quite sure what those comments meant at first.

The doctor said he didn't know if after the surgery Clay would be at "plus 10" or "minus 10" but he is pretty close to 0. So I asked "is that good?" He said "yes, that's what we want." In terms of glasses it means that Clay would not benefit from them. He doesn't need them. No, it doesn't mean he has 20/20 sight. As Clay explained it to me, with distance vision you can either magnify or demagnify. In his case being "at 0" means that either would just make his vision larger or smaller but less clear. In other words his distance vision is at its most clear without glasses.

That's for distance. For close work, it could be that the doctor will in the future prescribe some glasses for reading, etc. But it may also be just as practical for Clay to continue using the hand-held magnifiers he carries with him now. It's possible his vision may improve some more, although Clay hasn't reported much change in the last couple months.

We are both happy with where Clay's vision is at. It's definitely better than what he had before the surgery which was declining rapidly. And we are grateful it affords him the prospect of continued independence. As Martha would say, "It's a good thing!"

Happy 18th, Charlie!

Today is my nephew Charlie's birthday. He's 18 years old! What a milestone. Yesterday we celebrated with a fun family get together.

There were balloons, cake (chocolate with cream cheese filling!) and ice cream, pizza, gifts, and lots of general mugging for photos. We were even treated to a visit by DJ, Charlie's brother who now lives in Portland.

You can see more pics from the occasion by clicking on Charlie's cake.

Anniversary Trip to Vancouver

Clay and I had a great time in Vancouver. We spent all day Friday at the PNE, which is a lot like Western Washington's Puyallup Fair but with more live entertainment. We pretty much wore ourselves out and decided not to stay for the late evening shows.

However we did see a very impressive trampoline show.

We went through an exhibit called the Splendid Lanterns of Taiwan featuring lots of beautifully illuminated figures such as this butterfly.

There were some awesome carvings from the International Sand Sculpture Competition. Check out this Sasquatch sneaking up on a hunter.

We also took in the Iams Superdogs show and some of the Vancouver Star Discovery talent show. All in all it was a really fun time.

On Saturday we visited Vancouver's very impressive aquarium in Stanley Park before heading home.

We saw some really big fish there. These are freshwater fish from the Amazon where everything is oversized.


And we saw some beautiful small fish as well...


We also enjoyed checking out turtles, butterflies, sharks, beluga whales and a caiman (similar to an alligator).

To see more pictures from both the PNE and the Aquarium go here.