Itunes Won’t Transfer

I recently got a free MP3 player from work. I am not sure what brand it is and being free, who cares what brand it is. So, I tried to load some music on it. I was able to get my tracks from Windows Media player to load but I couldn’t get anything from Itunes to transfer. I figured I must be missing something so I looked around on the net to see if I was missing a step when I was trying to put my playlist on my MP3 player.

As it turns out, I am missing something, an IPOD. Itunes protects their music so that it can’t be transferred to just any old MP3 player without a hassle. An IPOD will easily take music from Itunes but it is a bit more complicated if you don’t have an IPOD. Seems I will either have to burn a bunch of cds and put the music into Windows Media Player or I can use a virtual cd burner and do it that way.

It just irritates me that I have been using Itunes for years and have bought quite a bit of music that I can’t put onto my MP3 player. I know they just want everybody to run out and purchase an IPOD. I am more inclined to just stop using Itunes and use a service that will allow me to easily transfer tracks onto any device I please. That only seems fair.

Palin for Vice President?

The first time I typed Palin into google, I couldn’t believe all of the accusations toward her in Alaska. Since then most of these accusations have blown up and become public knowledge. The troopergate investigation has revealed a bit but has not been made completely public.

Many people dismiss the troopergate investigation and any allegations against Palin. Supporters of Palin will believe nothing negative about the lady. They seem to believe that everyone is out to get her and that everything being said about her is lies.

Whether or not any of it is true, it has all been public knowledge (though not as widespread) since before McCain decided Palin would be his running mate. It makes me wonder what he was thinking in making this decision.

Mylot.com

Have you ever been to the site mylot.com? It is a site that compensates you (very slightly) for participating on their website. Participation is fairly simple. People post discussions and you simply respond. Or you can start your own discussions and see if other people respond.

I signed up on the site a few weeks ago. It is free to sign up. After signing up you can set up your profile with a picture, your interests, your website, or pretty much anything you feel like putting on your profile. It is good to at least put your favorite interests on your profile so you can be notified of discussions that fit your interest. That way you don’t even have to go searching for discussions that you’d want to read.

You can find discussions on just about anything. The guidelines are fairly simple. The only real issues I’ve seen people have so far are that you can’t post “adult” content and they don’t want you discussing your pay. You are not allowed to post discussions about how much money you have made on mylot. They also do not want for you to discuss sites that offer competition. Other than that, just about anything is up for discussion.

I have gotten a little stuck to that site. I like respond to discussions and check back to see what other people respond. I’ll post my own discussions and check in to see what other people have to say about it. I have a few friends on the site who always post interesting or humorous posts.

If you haven’t been to the site, I recommend checking it out. Don’t expect to make tons of money. As I said, the compensation is not much. The minimum payout is $10 and you’ll be spending a lot of time on the site if you expect to reach it anytime soon but it is a fun site to participate in. If nothing else it will give you the opportunity to write on just about any topic.

Family Values

Interesting campaign we have here. I for one, won’t judge a candidate solely on the skeletons in their family’s coat room, regardless of which house they keep them in. However, I do find the stories of their family lives interesting.

Obama - His father, from Kenya, left Obama and his mother when Obama was a young child. His mother remarried when he was six and moved him to Indonesia. Obama went to school in Indonesia for four years before he was sent back to the states where his grandmother raised him into adulthood. He has several half-siblings. Included is a younger brother living in Africa who reportedly lives on less than a dollar a month. Though, I have read articles claiming Obama’s brother is not as destitute as has been reported.

McCain - Total of seven children, three of which are adopted. Married twice. McCain has a history of infidelity. McCain continues to have close relationships with all of his children. Two of his sons are currently in the military. He has one son in Iraq.

Biden – His wife and infant daughter were killed in a car accident. His two young sons were seriously injured in the same accident. Biden chose to continue in the senate. Everynight he took the train home to his boys.

Palin – May have had an affair with a former business partner (possibly leading to his divorce). Has a pregnant teenage daughter. Palin is the mother of five children including a baby with downs syndrome. She reportedly tried to get her ex-brother-in-law fired from being a state trooper when he was in the middle of a divorce with Palin’s sister. After two terms of being the mayor of a small town in Alaska, Palin’s mother-in-law ran for Mayor. Palin publicly supported her mother-in-law’s opponent who then won the election.

The Appearance of Impropriety

This phrase has rubbed me the wrong way since I was old enough to create the appearance of impropriety. It started when I was in the Army. Being a female soldier, everything I did with my male counterparts and superiors was scrutinized, as was everything they did with me. I quickly learned that appearance was more important than fact in the eyes of most people and that I was expected to act accordingly. This idea did not settle well with me. I am a free thinking American female. I am perfectly capable of telling the difference between right and wrong and more than willing to take responsibility for my own actions. I live by my own code of ethics and place very little weight on the judgments of others.

After leaving the Army, I began enjoying the freedoms that come with no longer having to live under the law of the Code of Military Justice and the higer so-called moral standards. I say “so-called” not to imply that soldiers are not of a high moral standard but rather that merely avoiding the appearance of impropriety says nothing about your character and can in itself create moral dilemas.

It did not take long for me to see that this appearance of impropriety is as much a part of civilian life as it is for the military. Though, the consequences of being in an apparently compromising situation are usually more of a personal nature and unless you are a politician or judge you can choose to live by your own set of values rather than the opinions and perceptions of others.

The decision to place your own values above the perceptions of others can bring with it many unforseen consequences. As a manager or leader of people, it is easy to lose the trust and respect of those you must motivate to the cause. The discerning eyes of Americans can be easily turned away when they see something they feel is inappropriate. We do not live in a society where we are expected to blindly follow our leaders with undying loyalty. Quite to the contrary, we are expected to question our leaders. It is our duty as Americans to scrutinize political canidates in order to cast our vote for the best man (or woman) to lead our cherished democracy.

This attitude and way of life has naturally spilled over into every aspect of our lives. From the manager of your local McDonald’s on up to the president we expect our leaders to live up to a higher moral standard. However, appearance is not everything. There are times when things look much different than they actually are. Someone looking from afar may have a far different understanding of the events than what actually took place.

There are situations when you must decide what action to take. Sometimes doing the right thing may create the appearance of wrong doing to others. How can you do what is moral and honorable without allowing the possible appearance of impropriety to overshadow?

Make Your Own Easter Basket with a Balloon

Easter kind of snuck up on me this year. Somehow I thought it was in April. The past few years I have bought easter baskets for the boys and filled them with candy and a few spring time toys. Sidewalk chalk and bubbles are their favorites.

I don’t much care for the premade baskets and it seems the price of just the basket has gone up a bit. This year I am going to make my own easter baskets. It is a cute variation on the typical easter basket that will be a bit different than any of the baskets you’ve probably seen.

All you need is a balloon (the larger the better), some pastel yarn, glue, and a pair of scissors. Follow these easy steps:

1. Blow up the balloon.

2. Wrap the yarn around the balloon. Using a piece of scotch tape to hold the end to the balloon as you begin wrapping works well.

3. After the balloon has been wrapped with yarn to the point the entire balloon is coated with layers of yarn, saturate the yarn with glue. Several types of glue can be used. Just be sure it is nothing toxic and that it dries clear. I used tacky glue but even elmer’s glue will work. Adding just a touch of warm water to the glue will make it a bit easier to coat the yarn.

4. Let it dry for about 24 hours until COMPLETELY dry.

5. Pop the balloon. If you have not allowed enough time for the yarn to dry completely it may collapse when the balloon is popped.

6. With the scissors, cut out the handle of the basket.

If you desire, you can wrap the handle with yarn or ribbon. I’d recommend wrapping the handle, especially if your child will be carrying the basket for an easter egg hunt.

You can then fill the basket with easter grass, some candy, and any little treats your child may enjoy.

Cheap Cell Phone with NO DEPOSIT

I have recently done a little shopping around for a cell phone. I work at night and while I am gone my husband spends a bit of time on the phone dealing with the owners of different sites that he moderates.

We currently have a trac phone. We got it several years ago because we rarely use the phone and a trac phone worked out to be cheaper than any of the other options out there.

Including the price of the phone and the cards bought to add minutes to the phone, our yearly cell phone spending was about $100. After that year we started buying double minute cards that were good for a year. So, for one year the face value of the cards would double. It really wasn’t a bad deal at the time. We didn’t use the phone much and were paying much less than we would have for a cell phone plan.

Recently my husband has increased his cell phone usage. When I am at work at night he is moderating different websites and often uses the phone to communicate with the owners of the sites. The frequency we were buying cards for the trac phone had increased significantly to the point that I thought it would be cheaper to go ahead and get a phone with a nights and weekends plan.

So, the search was on. I researched a lot of companies on the internet looking for the best deal. I had found quite a few but where we live the availability of a good cell phone company is almost nonexistent. I say almost only because maybe i missed something on my searches.

It seems cell phone service is more expensive where we live than the quotes I could come up with in different parts of the country. Then there is the deposit that most of the companies require. I have seen advertised where some cell phone companies have prepaid plans where you can pay in advance and still take part in the plans they offer with no deposit. However, this does not seem to be an option in my part of the country.

So, I tried searching for prepaid cell phones. The same type i’d been using for years, but looking for something with a plan. Trac fone offers various plans, but the price range for what i was looking for would’ve ran about the same i was already paying. They offer no sort of nights and weekends plan. At least not where I live.

I really didn’t think I’d find a prepaid phone with this type of plan. I figured I’d either have to suck up the costs of buying a couple of cards a month or give in and pay the deposit with one of the cell phone companies in town.

Much to my surprise and delight, I found what I was looking for. Virgin Mobile actually has nights and weekends plans at a pretty decent price. For about $35 a month we get 200 or 300 anytime minutes and 1000 nights and weekends starting at 7pm. I have seen advertised where many companies actually charge you to start your nights and weekends at 7pm. So, this really sounded like a good deal. A thousand minutes on a trac fone, even buying minutes in large quantities at the cheapest rates, would cost me about a hundred dollars.

So, we bought the phone. I expected it to be much like a trac fone. And, in many ways it is. But I was amazed at the features with this phone that trac fone does not offer. Real music ring tones and downloadable graphics. I have to say that I was pretty impressed. The phone we bought was a little light weight flip phone at a pretty decent price. I believe it was around $15. Not a bad deal at all compared to many I have seen advertised with prices this low only being available if you enter into a contract.

I was worried that we might get a lot of dropped calls, which was a problem in the past in the part of town that we live. But so far we have not had a single dropped call.

With all of the cell phone companies out there charging outrageous prices and requiring steep deposits, I think Virgin Mobile is a pretty good deal.

What They See

Anyone who has a child or even spends a bit of time around a child knows that children are little sponges soaking up everything around them. The things we say when we think no body is listening will be repeated for us, often word for word, at the most inopportune times.

The thing that amazes me the most is not so much how they soak up the obvious things. You know, the things they repeat to their teacher or to grandma that can flush your face with embarassment. Not those things, but the things their impressionable minds process and ponder. The things they interpret from the things we say and do.

We say and do things every day that we put little thought into. Things that we would never even imagine that our children are paying attention to and using to form their views on the world around them. Not even just the things we say and do but the attitudes and manner in which we do and say things.

We rush about our daily routines trying to get the kids up and off to school. Then they come home from school and there is homework to do and dinner to prepare. Next thing you know the day is gone and it  is time for bed. The day has disappeared so quickly and the kids are sleeping soundly. Then it’s time to wake them up and the routine begins again.

Each day you try to take a little time to spend with the kids to let them know you love them because you know how quickly time passes and that you have to cherish every bit of time you have with them. They need that little bit of time to know that they are important to you. You need that little bit of time to know you are making a difference in their lives that are spent mostly with teachers and friends at school.

As they grow, they will say things to you that can blow your mind. It becomes apparent that nothing is trivial to a child. Everything you say and do goes through their little heads and becomes a child’s idea. The ideas of their innocence polluted by the jaded world around them.

“Cherish time” is the little time we spend each day talking about what they did that day and making them feel good about them selves. Asking them what they want to be when they grow up is a frequent topic of “cherish time”. It is during this cherish time that I have realized that no matter how I try to influence the boys, encourage them, and give instill my values in them, I just can’t see what they see. I can’t always forsee how the thing I say and do will be interpreted by my boys.

Yesterday I asked my five year old what he wanted to be when he grew up. The usual answer for him is either Spiderman or more generally a superhero. This time he told me “nothing”. So, I asked him if he wanted to be a superhero. Much to my surprise, he said no. So, I asked him what he wanted to do when he was an adult. He said “stay with you”. It was then that I realized how words I had said had taken a totally unintended meaning with my son.

I have Tuesday nights off from work. I tell my kids that Tuesday’s are my favorite days because I don’t have to work and I can stay with them. Recently my 5 year old asked my if I didn’t like work. Without saying yes or no, I told him that I’d rather stay with him. So, now my son has come to the conclusion that I don’t like work and that staying with me is a more appealing offer than being a superhero.

This is likely not just from the things I say but probably also from the attitude that I have about going to work. So, I try not to be so obviously distraught when I have to leave my boys for work and be more positive about working. But it just makes me realize that even saying things to let the boys know that I enjoy spending time with them can be interpreted much differently than intended.