Well Sunday the 26th, we got the garden planted, Lots of tomatoes, zuchini, yellow straight and crook necked squash, cucumbers, radishes, bell peppers and today I finished it off with 4 rows of okra, just beat the rain by a little, lol. Whew! my lower back was sure sore after all that tilling and pulling up the rows with a hoe. It'll be worth it in a few months if all goes well.

We are getting too much rain to get the garden ready, but that's ok because it has been too cool for it to grow well. I had a flat on the lawm mower and now my grass is getting too high with all this rain, it's a vicious cycle.

Well, Here it is April 6 and we expect a possible Freeze tonight, This could set me back on my planting dates, I'll miss this months window to plant by the light of the moon per the Farmers Almanac. Oh well, have to roll with the flow.

Word is Cablevision will be offering the HD lineups by the end of March, oh yeah! I can't wait, even the news is better in HD. We relish the technology improvements as they slowly made their way to smaller areas of Arkansas. Sometimes I crave the cutting edge accesss of the big city, but when I see the traffic I come back down to earth and am so thankful for small town arkansas. I then remember patience truly is a virtue.

ARRGGGhhhhh!!! They must still be testing, they took the HD channels away. :(

 

Wow, and it looked sooooo much better. Well maybe they are preparing to offer the customers something with an HD package soon, I sure hope so.

I scanned the TV channels last week and "Voila" , 3 HDTV channels now available, woohoo. Wow, what a difference in clarity and the sound is CD quality clear. We have CBS, NBC and Fox network.

 

I'm just amazed at the difference, the technology is very impressive.

 

If you don't have an HDTV yet, you need to budget and plan to get one especially if you have access to HD channels or HD satellite.

We installed Windows 7 on a test box a couple weeks ago and it's pretty impressive. Seems to have a smaller memory footprint, not as much of a resource hog as Vista is. There are some cool new features for sure, I'm sure you can find articles to read about them, so I won't bore you here. Just want to say we like it and it looks like another good step in the right direction.

 

It's still a Beta, so I'm looking forward to the RC's

We've been working out for awhile now, several weeks for me, maybe close to two months. Mainly light weight routine and treadmill, we revisited the Wii Fitness game, it's daily body tests are a great motivation and the training can be a lot of fun. Some are pretty tough to do I might add. The skiing games are a blast, but really work your calves and balance. I would recommend it to anyone that can workout.

Not bad, not bad at all, we enjoyed it, good game, a few funny ads. I can't believe it's been this long since I posted :(

I've been in the IT business for over 20 years, I've been to training on PC's and MAC's, I've worked on both through the years.

 

I'm proud to be a PC!!

We're back, we had a great time! This was a special year for Grace, she was able to get back together with friends she met at camp this summer and they seemed to have a blast. They went to Branson Landings together and Built a Bear together, the Heart ceremony included each one of the 5 girls and Donnie putting a heart in each one's bear, so I'm sure those bears will be a special memory for them. Then they watched the Fire and Water show.

 

They also seemed to have a good time at the dance and a few meals together, as well as Teen day when they went to the Laser Tag arena! I know they did a lot of laughing and singing when I was driving them around!

 

Jake got to spend some quality time with Katie and made a few future plans. They got together with friends and family and played Wii games and other games when they weren't eating, sleeping or attending events.

 

Tina and I had a very peaceful and encouraging time also.

Well, we are off to Branson, MO. next week. We are looking forward to a good break from the usual.

Well it's feeling a little more like Fall weather and the Feast of Tabernacles is right around the corner, the family is very excited and counting the days. Good food, good friends, good times and pleasant memories.

 

We should have some great pics to post when we get back, so stay tuned.

Wow, can't believe it's been that long since I added something here. I won't hand you all my excuses, even though I have them if you need them.

 

So, what's been going on, We now have a Wii Fit and Jake is using it regularly and it's working, I like the games that come with it. It does work you out pretty good, but is fun while doing it. It might be a challenge for some to unlock some of the additional games, etc. I do recommend it though. It's kind of a no brainer, just consider what a set of new digital scales would cost you at the store and that's half the purchase price if not more. And there is so much more it tells you, it even trys to motivate you.

 

Vista is still rocking along on a positive note, no problems, sometimes I forget I have it. Very stable thus far. We are even testing a Vista 64 box now. Interesting indeed!

 

Different subject: Fantasy Football, I came within a 3 point loss (due to a RB injury) of being the last undefeated team in the league by week 5. Bummer. Oh well, it's still fun though, a lot of good smack talk going on and some interesting games from week to week. It's something I can share with the boys and we can chat about from time to time.

 

Jonah says the new Star Wars game for PS3 is a lot of fun to play and good story line.

 

Cool weather and bonfires in the back yard while swinging.

 

Switched to Cable Telephone, great deal, it saved me a good bit monthly, free long distance in US, working good so far!

Even though I've been using Vista for over a year and a half in different scenarios, like my laptop has Vista on it, and the computer connected to the HD TV has Vista on it for the Media Center capabilities, I've just upgraded my main Test box to Vista this weekend. There is no comparison, to using it everday and getting to learn it better. It's really growing on me now. I too, love the gadgets, and no they don't use up all your resources if you bought a decent PC, lol. If you are a penny pincher, you might want to stay with XP.

 

One interesting and cool thing is; I was able to connect the other two Vista computers to the main Media Center PC and play the music and slideshows very easily. I don't know how it does it, but the Media Center on the other two pc's has the Playlists from the main one. I was playing the same playlist and slideshow one being a wireless connection at the same time just for a test. Not bad, I'm impressed.

 

So far all my older software on XP is running fine on Vista.

 

And at least I can get better video drivers for the Vista OS, when while testing Windows XP 64 bit, the drivers just weren't developed for a 3 yr old video card.

 

I'm liking Vista more and more,

I have a Vista Media Center PC with a tuner card installed connected to a 50" Plasma and a PS3. There is a lot of debate out there about Xbox 360 as a media extender, etc, etc. I have been able to connect the PS3 across the network and play the audio and video files from the Media Center PC, through the PS3, so it could be located somewhere else in the house, not dedicated to the living room. But the Media Center has a much better interface for playing different media than the PS3. At this time I still need both devices to acomplish all the tasks I want on my entertainment setup. I can record TV programs on the PC and or download movies to it and play them, but the Vongo service I use doesn't have a HD option yet. PS3 now has Movie rental or purchase options and has a HD option. And of course the PS3 Blu-Ray upconvert player is a must with a High Def TV. Great looking games are definitely gravy.  Some of the functuality is duplicated in the two devices, but each one does something the other doesn't

 

I think I'll have to stay with multiple devices for awhile, as I believe the battle between Microsoft and Sony will wage on for years, we can only hope as comsumers we reap the rewards of great prices from the competition.

Just got back from the 3rd Annual Teaching with Technology Symposium:

 

Some very interesting things discussed for sure. Like most of my college instruction was flawed, now the science seems to be there to back up what I frustratingly stated years ago. You can't expect students to take notes all class long and listen to the lecture, it goes against what our brain allows. There are paths, like reading and learning or verbal and visual learning, they don't mix well together. View the transripts of the experts at the symposium.

 

A big emphasis was about how our world has changed so drastically, especially the digital age and how the educators are finally realizing they have to reach the students in more interactive ways. Looking at pictures of the classroom from the 1920's, it hasn't changed much since then.

 

It looks like the online classes will acheive this transition well before the brick and mortar classes will. How ironic that the online classes may become the better quality ones when they are being debated as not as good.

 

Some will fight the change and as history shows, will slowly retire and die as the change consumes us all.

 

I choose to ride the wave of progress to as positive a change as it can bring in my lifetime. Bring on the big waves, I"M READY!!!!

 

PS, I had the best technology at the symposium among the attendees, who's the man?

Well, the family got together Memorial Day weekend, we played a lot of games and went swimming some. Watched a few movies. It was a good time to rest up and share lifes stories.

 

I asked the kids to let me film them playing Rock Band, so I could add that to our memories.

 

I have a short clip of the kids playing Rock Band on the PS3 for ya! Click the "Play" button on the Media Player to see the video.

Christine Howard, WOW! I could tell you so many stories, and so many others could too, but I know it would be too lengthy. Stories of how she loved and encouraged and FED, all the friends of her 12 children. Phenomenal is a pretty good description of Christine, because I know no other like her. I truly don't know how she did it and stayed so positive throughout. As a child you don't realize how times can be rough, but after growing older I thought back in awe at how she took care of us all. She was always so supportive of us all, but would tell us how it was if we were in the wrong.

 

I've known her for 44 yrs now, and her baby daughter is the love of my life. I owe her so much, I could never repay it, I can only do my best and try.

 

I wish I was setting in her living room enjoying a cup of coffee with her, talking about old times, right now. We have a lot of great memories. That I'm very proud of!

 

Jake's friend,

 

Paul Freeman

 

New Photo Gallery of some of us at her 81st Birthday, enjoy!!

As hard as I try to keep up this blog, I just seem to get busy and not find time. I know it's just an issue of time managment and having it somewhere on the days schedule. Maybe that's the real problem, lol. I'm going to continue to try though. I'd like for this the be where friends and family can kind of find out the latest that is going on with our family in general.

 

Therefore, this weekend we have a fun filled weekend planned, the boys will be coming in for Memorial Day weekend. That means the competiion will begin anew. The latest is the girls against the boys in Rock Band, the Boys won the first round, but the girls found out they used some unthought of before teamwork and cried foul, basically Jake did the drum foot pedal while singing the vocals, lol. So the girls cried foul.

 

We have the pool up and filling with water as we speak, but I bet it'll still be cold by this weekend, some of the girls say, they don't care, jumping in any way. lol.

 

We've been trying out a new PC game (Team Fortress 2), it's fast paced and a little hard to figure out the strategy so far, but just another game we can play together online. It has a comic humor side to it that's different for sure.